Molly and Dottie in Grouse Land

Molly and Dottie learning the way around the Home Cover.

Yesterday was rather interesting here at the kennel.  Tony and I have agreed to stay out of our main training covers until at least late June to give the grouse and woodcock chicks a chance to get to the flying stage (although the woodcock will be flying long before then). So we ran in a cover near the house that is usually just a flight cover in the fall with an occasional resident woodcock or grouse in the summer.  It's always been someplace that good to just let the dogs get some exercise.  Well, yesterday we ran a couple pairs of dogs through this cover and found to separate woodcock that at this late date are definitely resident birds.

Then After Tony left I decided to make a loop up behind the kennel to give Molly and Dottie some exercise.  In the past we have had very few spring and summer grouse in the home cover.  It is usually a lot more active when the apples, cranberries, and other fruit and nuts are ripe.  I reported early on the two grouse win the yard the other evening, while yesterday we didn't disturb those two as we made a larger loop, but we moved six grouse in less then 30 minutes and  heard three drummers that were in theWild Apple cover or nearby.

I going to have to reach deep in the bag of tricks to find places to run the pups until we're back in the woods full time.